


the absence of oxygen

by kurgaya



Series: by respiration [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Character(s), Nakamaship, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 04:57:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8564929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurgaya/pseuds/kurgaya
Summary: The descent to Fishman island almost kills them, but it's Raquel that poses the first of many challenges in the New World. 
  Raquel soars up above the rooftops and high out of reach, and Pax whines, sounding a little confused by the rebuttal.

  “D’you think she’s happier up there?” she asks, and since Zoro can’t say for sure, he says nothing at all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel to _that which is breathed_. You'll need to read that first if you haven't already :)
> 
> It's been a while since I read the Fishman Island arc in detail, so some of the events might not be entirely accurate/in order. But eh. As long as you know the general gist of the arc then it's all good :)

 

The descent to Fishman island almost kills them.

Zoro is sure that there are easier, more official way of entering the kingdom than blasting the Sunny through the layers of its outer bubble - untraversable, as it turns out, they are definitely _not_ \- but Luffy does have a preference for dramatics. Piracy is as good a reason as any to begin their adventure beyond the Grand Line with a bang, and as Zoro peels himself up from a coral beach and vomits water onto the ground, he realises that he had _missed_ this ludicrousy in more ways than he could ever explain.

“A - ah, excuse me? Sir? Are you all right?”

 _Sir_ is not a form of address that Zoro often finds himself on the receiving end of. The crew, for instance, prefer derogatory titles, points and clicks, calls of _hey idiot!_ and _for god’s sake Zoro!_ although Robin and Brook tend to be the exceptions, uttering his name without any of that fanfare. Neither of them are prone to calling him _sir_ though, and the fact that he could ever be classy enough to warrant it is probably the reason he can hear Pax snickering just out of sight.

Zoro hauls himself up, checking that his swords and limbs are all attached before sweeping his surroundings. The first thing he notes is that he appears to landed in something of a reef, all manner of colour dotted about in the rocks and wildfire. A pool is water rests behind him; there are no waves or currents that he can see, but he imagines that it’s connected to the outside ocean anyway (an ocean with an ocean maybe?) so he guesses that’s where he emerged from, which would explain the dampness of his clothes. The head of the young girl sticking above the surface would explain the voice, too, and she watches him curiously as he dog-shakes his hair.

“This Fishman?” he asks her, although the answer is surely _yes_. Where else in the world would there be an island like this, with mermen and fishmen and all sorts of aquatic animals swimming around as far as the eye can see?

(Not Sabaody Archipelago, that’s for sure).

The girl nods - and shit, she really is just a kid - big, blue eyes peeking up above the surface. Just behind her, a tailfin that shines in the artificial, deep-sea light flicks through the water, but the mermaid doesn’t approach, her gaze darting between Zoro and whatever lies beyond him.

Pax, no doubt, a quiet and menacing presence to the girl.

“You crashed in, didn’t you?” the mermaid asks, childish curiosity overcoming her wariness. “You know that’s not allowed.”

She smiles as though they’re both not aware of his _illegal_ trespassing. Zoro doesn’t quite manage a smile back - although he tries, he really does, because she’s a kid and kids are easy to please, but he’s sopping wet and his nakama are missing, and he doesn’t even know where the Sunny has gone.

“You think you can keep that a secret while I go looking for my friends?” Zoro asks, crouching down on the shoreline. Wisely, Pax stays where she is, distant and non-threatening despite her colossal size, and Zoro hears her tail sweep across the pebbles as it begins to wag.

“Is that a daemon?” the mermaid asks, distracting from the question. She points a wet, human hand towards Pax, and it’s just as well that they’re so far apart, lest the kid try to reach out and touch her. Fishmen don’t have daemons, if Zoro remembers rightly, and he doesn’t want any awkward contact to ensue - even if the mermaid is simply curious.

“Yeah, that’s _Pax_. She’s a wolfdog. My friends have got daemons too.”

“Like the bird?”

Zoro blinks. Pax’s ears twitch, her head rising a fraction. The mermaid blinks back at them, and then points out to the coral before they can get a word in otherwise.

“There was a bird too!” she insists, swimming closer to better point them in the right direction. “It came out of the water all wet and funny-looking. It was talking.”

 _Huh_ , Zoro thinks; Pax rises slowly behind him, slipping away to investigate. “Was it speckled or completely black?”

The girl seems to consider it for a moment, tapping her chin. “It was spotty and brown! It looked really silly.”

Raquel. She must have been thrown from the Sunny with them. Zoro isn’t too worried - separated from Luffy as she is, there’s no reason to be concerned about her distance from him causing any pain - but he should go and find her anyway. As Luffy’s daemon she is automatically nakama (absent though she has been), and to top it off she is the _captain’s_ daemon, which means the likelihood of her stirring up trouble is _paramount_.

 _God forbid_ , he despairs, trekking off after Pax. _They’ve got two Luffys on the ship now_.

Pax isn’t far. She is, on the other hand, utterly _drenched_ and looking quite sorry for herself, her gold-tinted fur plastered over a hulking, shivering frame. Icy sea-water oozes from the fur, and she seems to have shrunk to half her size, less threatening now than she ever has been before, a sloppy, seaweed-splattered puddle of a wolf. One ear twitches towards his approach, and Zoro has to muffle his laughter at the sight of her tail looking like a thick, despondent snake.

His clothes have already started to dry.

“Have your laugh now,” she grumbles, accepting the head-scratch anyway. “Raquel looks like a fuzzy pigeon, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

Zoro allows himself that laugh. “She okay?”

“Miffed, I think,” Pax says with a sniff, nose twitching. “I’m not sure. You know that.”

Luffy’s reunion with his daemon had occurred only that morning. The ship’s immediate departure and plummet to the sea-floor had offered them little time to do anything but the most basic introductions (“Guys, guys, this is Raquel! Raquel - this is my crew, our crew! That’s Zoro and Pax, and that’s Nami and Jasper, and Usopp and Morg, and…”) so Raquel is still something of a mystery to the crew. Just like her other half, exploring the Sunny to familiarise herself with the layout had been her first port-of-call, and as the ship sunk beneath the waves and scattered sea kings and monsters alike, Raquel had found a perch atop the crow’s nest, and that is where she stayed.

Zoro knows that Luffy, too, sometimes uses the Sunny’s figurehead to have a moment of peace, so he hadn’t been too worried over Raquel’s disappearance. Pax, it seemed, and still seems now, is unsettled enough for the both of them, unsure on how to bridge the distance that Raquel keeps putting between them. Truthfully, they are basing their assumptions on Raquel’s personality on _Luffy_ , but they both know that daemons and their other halves exist to _complement_ each other, coexist as equivalents, not equals, not exactly _one and the same_. They share the same soul, yes, but they each embody half of it, and the experiences they face in life are not entirely the same.

Pax spent two years with Luffy. Zoro did not.

Luffy has gathered and sailed with a crew that adore him. Raquel has not.

“She’s hard to read,” Pax sighs, not that she often wastes the time trying to figure people out. Raquel’s personality and motivations will unravel with time, so there’s little use exerting the effort trying to pry them from her.

(Still - Zoro can recognise that Raquel’s case is different. It’s _Luffy’s daemon_ that they’re talking about).

“I want her to like me,” Pax admits, dark gaze catching Zoro’s assent. She appears to consider him for a moment (as though she ever has the need), before her jaws open in a wry grin, canines sharp within her mouth. “We’ve never wanted anybody to like us before.”

That… is true.

“I didn’t even want Kuina to like me,” Zoro mumbles, and yet _here they were_ ; Kuina, his sister, and the Wadō Ichimonji her dream.

“Or Luffy,” Pax agrees with a _thump_ of her tail into the ground. “That went well, didn’t it? Found ourselves a captain worth dying for.”

There is nothing Zoro could ever say in reply that Pax doesn’t already know. Instead, he just continues to stroke her crown, knowing that his daemon can feel his admiration, his pride, and his affection for the man that will one day be King.

“Come on,” Pax says, nudging him with her snout. “Let’s go see if Raquel’s dry yet.”

She’s not. _Fuzzy pigeon_ is a faultless description of the peregrine, but Zoro manages not to laugh when they locate her perched by a rockpool, bedraggled and puffed-up to twice her usual size. Her beak works meticulously to groom the feathers back into shape, and water drips down out of her tail with every disgruntled shake.

So, daemons of Devil Fruit users _aren’t_ hammers, but Raquel is definitely averse to the sea.

She pauses her labour as they approach, turning a crest of coffee-stained feathers towards them. Her beak and eyes are a vibrant yellow, rivalling only the sun and the shine of Luffy’s smile, and her gaze is the force of his will when he drops his hat low over his eyes.

Raquel says nothing - and Zoro realises that he doesn't know what to say either.

“You gonna be able to fly, all wet like that?” Pax asks, as though she, herself, isn't still leaving watery paw prints behind her.

Raquel gives her wings a flap, spreading out a curtain of beige, black, and grey. “If I have to,” she says, quite matter-of-fact about it, no room for arguments in her tone. She gives her wings a considerate once-over and then shakes her feet like Zoro has seen Luffy shake out his sandals hundreds of times before.

There is something tied to her leg. At first, Zoro fears it’s a tag or a tracker, bound there by somebody who would wish her harm, but then he notices that it is not one, but two thin pieces of ribbon, one as red as what adorns Luffy’s hat, and the other a periwinkle blue.

 _In memoriam_ , he thinks, although he’s not sure why.

He decides not to ask her about it.

“You think the others have gotten far?” he asks instead, looking out towards the distant rooftops, a town of peach, sea-blue, and green. The bustle of a lazy afternoon can be heard from streets away. Beyond the kingdom’s air supply, enormous turtles with bubbles attached to their shells swim by, mermen and fishmen alike unaware of the pirates upon their shores.

Trouble is stirring. There’s no question of _if_.

“Knowing Luffy, he’ll be ransacking the palace already,” Pax replies, which is just as true as the fact that the sun rises every day.

“Best catch up with him then. You coming Raq - _hey!_ ” With a hiss of pain, he drags his foot out from underneath his daemon’s claws. Scowling at her stern look, he grumbles an irritable _what?_ only to be rewarded by the chink of her claws against the ground.

Raquel looks on silently, her head tilted into a curious slant.

“ _Luffy’s. Daemon_.” is the unhelpful whisper from Pax.

Zoro ignores her, not pretending to understand. He turns back to Raquel and wonders how best to manoeuvre her if she can’t fly; touching her without explicit permission is obviously a no-go, but he doesn’t imagine that she’ll move very fast on the ground. Birds aren’t made to hop for long distances (right…?) and he wonders if Pax could carry her, or how both of the daemons would take the suggestion that they interact -

Oh.

Pax and Raquel aren’t the issue. It’s _him_ and Raquel who shouldn’t be speaking. The Strawhat crew overcame that social taboo so long ago that Zoro has _forgotten_ that he isn’t supposed to be addressing Raquel directly - just as she hadn’t been today, aiming queries at Luffy and answering questions only from Pax. Zoro is so used to _not thinking_ before conversing with his nakamas’ daemons (treating them like crew, like the nakama that they are), so it’s no wonder that Pax tried to cut him off.

Raquel may be Luffy’s daemon, but she doesn’t yet know the workings of the crew.

“Err,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. He glances at Pax, searching her expression for any sort of guidance (should he disregard the taboo, or wait for Raquel to disregard it first?) but she just shakes her head, ears flicking asynchronously as though they can’t decide what to do.

Zoro understands that all too well.

 

 

 

Raquel opts to walk until the edge of town, then takes to the skies. A man with two daemons will attract unwanted attention, she reasons, and although Pax admits that her being a _wolfdog_ attracts enough stares and whispers by itself, Raquel takes flight anyway, soaring up above the rooftops and high out of reach.

“D’you think she’s happier up there?” Pax muses, sounding a little confused by the rebuttal.

Zoro can’t say for sure, so he says nothing at all.

As predicted, Pax’s hulking presence does draw the attention of the townspeople. Mostly dry now, her size has returned to its threatening magnificence, and children and adults alike hunch out of her way. They are long-since used to the fear; Zoro, himself, walks like a warning through the streets with three battle-ready blades at his side, but no daemon can escape the stereotypes of its species. Were Pax a dog, she would be considered an approachable _best friend_ with fur that fluffs and puffs out larger than life. And were she a wolf, she would be territorial, vicious, solitary, and wild. But she is neither, and both, a hybrid of the best parts (or a hybrid of the worst parts, maybe), and the fact that nobody can ever seem to decide on what she _should be_ is reason enough to be wary of her, Zoro supposes.

Some humans do dwell down here on Fishman island, so it’s not as though Pax is a phenomenal arrival. Most of their daemons, however, fit the civilian stereotypes: smaller animals, mammals and pets and things you can cuddle at night, although Zoro is sure that some of the marine wildlife floating around on the bubbles are daemons - fish and turtles and even otters, like Will.

They’re probably having a great time down here, and Zoro laughs, rather imagining that Usopp and Morgandy are _not._

“I’ve lost sight of Raquel,” Pax sighs then, prompting Zoro to tilt his head back to the sky. He almost walks into a man with scales the colour of goldfish and a fin flopping back out of his hair, but at the sight of Pax’s teeth and claws, the stranger is quick to flee despite Zoro’s grumbled apology.

Raquel is nowhere to be seen. Granted, a single building stretches up like a mountain in the distance, consuming half of the skyline with its grandeur and spiralling towers, but Raquel’s arrow-like silhouette has vanished. It’s unlikely that she has come to any harm - they may be pirates, but they’re not here to kick up a fuss. Although, if Pax’s prediction about Luffy being in the centre of any trouble turns out to be true (and it will, of course it will) then Zoro supposes there is a chance that she has already located her other half.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, scratching his daemon’s nose. “She knows where we’re heading.”

Not, that is, that he thinks Raquel will do something like _check in on them_. There’s already enough mother-hens on the crew as it is; thank god Chopper doesn’t have a daemon, to be honest, because then there would be _two_ doctors to guilt trip everybody into attending their appointments.

Pax follows his gaze, squinting at the overbearing building above the town. “Where’d you think the palace is, then?”

“Not sure. It’s gotta be pretty big, right?”

“Like that ugly thing?” she snorts, already leading them off in a random direction.

Zoro follows, not giving the oversized building and all its towers a second glance. The townspeople part ways for them, as though Pax is leading a royal procession through the streets. It makes navigating the town easier, at any least, if the streets and empty and wide.

“Probaby. Maybe someone in a bar will be able to help. You smell any good ones?”

Pax laughs and sticks her nose to the ground, searching for the oldest, most expensive alcohol around. The trail leads them straight to the doors of the aforementioned _ugly_ building that is trying to take over the sky, and Zoro exchanges an almost disappointed glance with his daemon before shoving his way inside. It’s dark and claustrophobic in the room that they find, so they’ve either discovered a warehouse or the side-entrance to a pub, both of which have likely chances of hiding booze.

What has either _higher_ chances of offering a decent drink is the royal palace itself, which Zoro only realises that they’ve stumbled upon once they turn from a pointlessly carpeted corridor with tapestries hanging every metre or so into a room with enough space to fit the Sunny ten times over, to find a gigantic old man sitting in what can only be a _throne_.

“Nami would go _nuts_ if she could see the size of that crown,” Pax comments.

At once, the King and the fishmen - advisors, maybe? - swivel around to stare goggle-eyed at Zoro and Pax. The King emits a startled noise in a pitch seemingly too high for his enormous, heavily-bearded, easily sixty-plus year old physique, but one of the advisors has the sense to call for the guards.

“Now wait, wait,” says the King, even as two pairs of guards come rushing into the room, tridents at the ready. “The young man has done no harm. He may just be lost.”

“ _Armed_ and _within the palace_?” the advisor cries.

“He may be _very_ lost,” the King soothes, signalling for the guards to halt. He gestures for Zoro to approach despite the protest from the second advisor (“He has _three swords_ , Your Majesty!”) with a parental, maybe even grandfatherly, twinkle in his eyes.

Deciding that this King is either too nice or too stupid, Zoro approaches. He has absolutely no reason to harm anybody in this kingdom, after all, unless Luffy _has_ already arrived in the palace and been attacked or detained, to which Zoro will _definitely_ be showing these advisors just how dangerous he can be.

“Hey old man, you got any booze?”

“You are addressing the King!” the first advisor splutters, clutching a wad of paper like a shield.

“So he's the best person to ask, yeah?” Zoro reasons, Pax coming to settle like a monstrous shadow at his heels. “And you seen a bouncy, straw-hatted guy who introduces himself as _the future Pirate King_ anywhere?”

“The Pirate King?” the King repeats, leaning forward in his chair. The advisors maintain a respectful distance, but that might just be to avoid the merman’s humongous beard. “Are you one of the pirates who saved my daughter's _Megalo_ this morning?”

“The hell’s a _Megalo_?”

“Megalo is a shark who serves the royal household. Apparently, he had fallen victim to a kraken just beyond the kingdom boundaries. He returned to recount his rescue at the hands of a pirate crew.”

“Luffy _did_ punch a kraken earlier,” Pax says.

This is apparently all of the proof that the King needs. He waves his advisors’ protests away, assuring the guards that they are no longer needed. They hesitate, regarding Zoro and Pax warily, but there is nothing they can do but obey the order. Pax bears her teeth just for good measure, flashing their slow retreat a mouth of pearls and knives, and Zoro’s lips twitch approvingly as the guards fluster in panic.

The King, too stupid or too nice as he is, doesn’t notice. “I want to express my gratitude to you and the rest of your crew. Are they also within the palace? That would certainly save me the trouble of searching for them,” he says, swimming from his throne. Colossal chains of gold clank around his neck, his crown not the only jewel he adorns, and even the trident he carries seems to be made of solid gold. Zoro doesn’t have an eye for gems or riches, but he can appreciate that the trident is probably a formidable weapon, assuming the King doesn’t own it just for show.

“Err, no. They’re all out in the town somewhere. Does that mean I can have some booze?”

The King laughs, bidding them to follow. The advisors splutter but recognise when they’re being dismissed, sharing an exasperated glance as the gigantic King sweeps past them, Zoro and Pax plodding along behind.

“Of course, of course,” says the King, ushering them into a smaller room. “Make yourself comfortable in here, and I’ll have somebody bring refreshments to you. Your crew are in the town, you said? How many of you are there?”

Zoro tells him, seating himself at the table. It’s not a sofa by any means, not really a place to relax, but he’s slept and drank alcohol in worst places. Pax hops up onto the chair beside him, this one built for somebody more her size, and the King laughs joyfully as the servants scramble to the kitchens to prepare something for their guests.

“You will be happy to entertain yourselves while I gather your crew?” he asks.

Zoro shrugs, swinging his boots up onto the table. “Sure. I haven’t got a reason to go anywhere.”

Not if there’s booze on the way. Still, the possibility that this may be a trap hasn’t escaped him. As far as he’s aware, there isn’t any reason that the King would wish to do them any harm beyond the usual suspects of reasons: them being pirates and the bounties on their heads. Luffy’s bounty alone is enough to turn heads, but anybody who thinks that the Strawhat captain is an easy target has their head screwed on the wrong way. The King of Fishman island will only discover the same should his intentions be anything less than moral, but Zoro doesn’t think that will be the case.

Pax, too, is watchful of the palace staff that come and go, but she remains curled up in the chair, not expecting to be attacked. There’s every chance that somebody has tampered with the food and drink as well, but Zoro isn’t one to turn his nose up at free food and drink, even with that possibility. If something _does_ turn out to be poisoned, then he’ll just have to alert Chopper as soon as possible, nothing to worry about.

“How’s it taste?” Pax asks as Zoro downs half of a tankard, the foamy top to the beer sloshing over the rim and dribbling down his chin. The palace staff are unable to hide their surprise at his barbarity, and Zoro grins as he tips the glass towards his daemon.

“‘S good. Try it.”

Pax shoves her nose into the jug.

Some of the staff exchange glances of confusion, one of them being nudged forward into a nervous approach. Zoro had definitely seen humans and daemons down in the town, so it must be the fact that he’s a pirate that is frightening the citizens here. That, or it’s Pax, and this is probably quite likely if larger, predaceous daemons - especially mammals - are less common down in the depths.

“W - would, um, would a bowl be of any use?” the waiter asks.

Pax snorts the booze up her nose and jerks away, paws and claws flailing as she chokes. The waiter dives away from her chair, scales flashing different colours of alarm, and a guard - so there _are_ guards stationed outside - ducks his head through the door to investigate.

“The jug’s fine,” Zoro reassures, his tone sharp with a wolfish smile. “She’s not a pet.”

The waiter flusters, blurting apologies before quickly dashing away. They steer clear of him after that, obliged to do their King’s bidding but intimidated by their guest, but Zoro doesn’t care either way. The drink is enough to bide his time, and Pax had been his only companion before his time amongst the Strawhat crew. Maybe it would have been different had Kuina not died so suddenly - but Zoro doesn’t like to dwell on thoughts like that.

It isn’t long before a commotion within the palace promises to stir this lazy afternoon into something more interesting. Voices rise up in the hallway, most of the serving staff long-since returned to other duties, and Pax’s body rises with the sound, her tail and ears perking up. Zoro is alert at once, trusting in his daemon’s instincts as he trusts his own. He sets down his tankard and kicks back his chair, and from one of the windows far, far above his head, there is a call of warning from a bird - from a falcon, from Raquel, Zoro recognises, just as he can pinpoint the sound of Luffy’s orders through a troubled and violent sea.

Guards charge into the room, flanking the walls, surrounding the table. Zoro doesn’t hesitate and neither does Pax; Raquel may be apart from the crew whereas Luffy is not, but in this moment they are one and the same, a captain and his daemon, and though Luffy isn’t here to lead the fight himself, Zoro knows that his will is expressed in Raquel as she dives down like a thunderclap and crashes like a wave.

The soldiers scream, unable to outmanoeuvre a falcon. Pax lunges into the confusion, jaws grappling with a trident. It’s hard for her not to maim or kill, but her snarling mass of fangs and thick, silvery fur is often enough to cower her opponents into second-guessing the worth of their lives. Zoro draws Shusui, the blade’s short temper urging him to fight, but truly, with Raquel scattering the guards for Pax to pick off one-by-one (and pick off she does, a wolf in her element, whittling down her prey), there is hardly anything left to satisfy the blade.

“What are your orders?” Zoro demands, pinning the closest guard. He almost barks _what’s my dumbass captain done now?_ but manages to refrain due to the inconceivable chance (but a chance, nevertheless) that Luffy is somehow _not_ involved.

“To seize and bring you before the King!” the guard splutters, eyeing Shusui’s bloodthirsty edge.

“So the King authorised this?”

“The - the Princess!” the guard croaks, which isn’t much more of a relief to hear, especially when the fishman clarifies: “The Princess Shirahoshi is missing!”

And what that has to do with _him_ , Zoro has no idea. “Go figure. Curly-brow’s probably just gotten ahead of himself,” he sighs, scanning the crumpled heap of the other guards, Pax prowling victorious around them. Raquel has made herself comfortable on one of their helmets, the guard within frozen in terror. She definitely shares Luffy’s audacity, that’s for sure.

“I can hear Morgandy and Jasper down the hall,” Pax says. “There’s a fight going on.”

“Yeah,” Zoro replies, pushing out his observation haki in search. Five of the signatures are familiar to him - Nami’s and Usopp’s burning bright, and Brook’s like an icy chill. They seem to be handling themselves just fine, but it won’t hurt to check up on them. _Especially_ if Luffy has gone and done something as stupid as steal the Princess from under the entire kingdom’s nose.

“Yeah, I can feel ‘em. Forget this lot. Raq - fuck - I mean - _Pax_ ,” he corrects, looking pointedly at his own daemon. “Chances that Luffy’s kidnapped the Princess?”

Honestly, it’s the most ludicrous idea he’s ever heard, but he can’t imagine a King fabricating a scandal like the kidnapping of his own _daughter_. Maybe Raquel will know, since it’s _her_ that he’s actually asking.

(Since she’s _here_ to even be asked - and not with Luffy, and not wherever else she wants to be).

“Pretty unlikely,” Pax says, snapping bloodied jaws at the guard who tries to reach for his weapon.

Raquel preens for a long, unnecessary moment, head ducking in and out of her feathers. It’s as though she has complete faith that their nakama will be able to hold off the guards, like Luffy in that regard, her trust unwavering, but considering that she doesn’t even _know_ the crew, Zoro isn’t sure.

Maybe she doesn’t care?

 _No_ , he thinks, tracking her path of carnage from her bloody talons to the gashes and tears in the guards, _because she wouldn’t be here if she didn’t._

Maybe she’s buying _time_.

“I like ‘extended his hand of friendship to’ better,” Raquel declares, looking quite chuffed with herself as she gives her wings a flap, the guard flinching beneath her.

Zoro rolls back his single eye so far that his head rolls with it. _Luffy’s gone and kidnapped a Princess_.

“She’ll be fine,” Raquel assures, which isn’t exactly the matter in question here.

Pax huffs, lips curling up in agreement with Zoro’s despairing sigh. “Of course she’ll be fine, she’s with _Luffy,_ ” she drawls, abandoning her sentry to head to their nakamas’ aid. “He hasn’t become completely barbaric since you last saw him.”

Her tail flicks against the guard upon which Raquel has perched. The peregrine startles but doesn’t retaliate, head craning around to watch Pax prowl into the corridor and out of sight. Only when the wolfdog has gone does Raquel ruffle her feathers, golden eyes so wide that they may as well be all-seeing as she tilts her head at Zoro, a predator waiting for his next move.

Never before has Zoro felt unnerved by a daemon in his crew.

She doesn’t ask him to clarify his daemon’s opinion (and he’s really not sure if that’s a good thing) and so he doesn’t bother, not sure that he could find the words to make up for Pax’s temper. Rather, he merely steps around the cowering guards and follows his haki to where his nakama are fighting, wanting to reassure himself of their wellbeing before trying to mediate this emotional mess. Pax is long gone, but Zoro doesn’t stop to see if Raquel decides to join them.

By the time the palace guards are all defeated, the Strawhats triumphant before the King and his advisors wrapped up in chains, there are more pressing things to worry about than Pax and Raquel having a spat.

“ _Apparently_ , Luffy is foretold to destroy the island,” Nami explains, clima-tact sparking at the end. She gestures the weapon to the two advisors that Zoro had met earlier, who both shrink away at the navigator’s glower. “Which is just a load of rubbish, _as I keep trying to explain_.”

“It’s probably just as well the knights haven’t managed to capture you then, Zoro,” Jasper adds, snickering along with Morgandy and Brook. The musician has already decided to grace this victorious moment with a tune, _yohohoho_ ing around the unconscious bodies of the guards.

“Apparently the Princess is missing too,” Jasper goes on, tail swishing in displeasure. “But that’s kind of ridiculous, don’t you think, given the size of him?”

The fox daemon nods his head at the King, making a pretty sound point. Zoro hums, gaze settling heavy on the King’s teary-eyed anger, and decides not to confirm Luffy’s involvement in the kidnapping. Luffy is far too straightforward for his daemon to be a liar, after all.

“We don’t even know where Luffy _is_ ,” Usopp wails. “We should definitely be looking for him - and trying to find a way to fix coating bubble around the Sunny. We won’t be able to leave the island otherwise!”

“It’s broken?”

“It burst on our way in,” the sharpshooter explains, Morgandy nodding from her den within his dungarees. “Finding someone who will mend it for us _now_ is going to -”

A den-den mushi begins to ring, cutting him off. “That’s - that’s the door!” one of the advisors cries as Zoro strides up to it, noticing the wire curling out its shell and up, up, up towards the humongous front doors of the palace. The sea snail continues to purr, the mouthpiece rattling in the groove of its shell, so Zoro sheathes one of his katana and answers it, much to the horror of everybody else in the room.

“ _Zoro_! You can’t just -”

“That is _palace property_ -!”

“The Princes -!”

The den-den mushi _clunks_.

“Roronoa Zoro,” Zoro announces, and Usopp clonks him around the head with Kabuto, shrieking, _DON’T GIVE YOUR NAME!_ “Whoever this is, I have the King and palace staff hostages in here. I’d suggest not opening the doors just yet.”

“Or at _all_ ,” Morgandy mutters.

“ _My name is Fukaboshi, first son of King Neptune and Prince to this kingdom_ ,” comes the reply from down the line, the den-den mushi’s face twisting as it tries to imitate the fishman’s shark-like set of teeth. “ _What are your reasons for sieging the palace, Roronoa Zoro?_ ”

“Excuse _you_ ,” Nami cries, almost knocking Zoro over in her haste to reach the den-den mushi. “They attacked _us_! _We’re_ the innocent victims here!”

“We captured them in self-defence!” Jasper pipes up from the floor, pawing at the little table upon which the den-den mushi rests. The snail eyes him warily, but that might be due to Fukaboshi trying to discern the number of perpetrators in the room.

“ _I see. Then you have no demands?_ ”

Nami laughs as though she can’t quite believe her ears. “Of course we have demands!” she replies, her eyes already twinkling that unnatural, beli green. “I want the entire contents of your treasury, and any maps, and -”

“We want the know where the rest of our crew are,” Zoro interrupts, lest the money-grabbing navigator get carried away. “And our ship has a coating bubble that needs replacing so they we may leave without any more trouble. In return, I will guarantee the safety of the hostages.”

Fukaboshi considers it, talking in low tones to whoever accompanies him. Perhaps another Prince or two, if Zoro rightly recalls, the second and third voices as equally disinclined. They should know that they have little choice at the moment though - and they accept this, after a moment, as Fukaboshi’s agreement comes like a sigh down the line.

“ _I will make preparations that you get what you desire, provided that nobody comes to harm_.”

“Deal,” Zoro says, hanging up just moments before the front gates crash open, wood and metal blasting apart as a horde of uproarious fishmen march inside. They storm in as a wave, two fearsome men leading the howling cheers of the troops to swarm the entrance hall. One of them is wielding a trident like the palace guards, his icy-blue body covered in tattoos and scars, and the other is gangly and tall, his yellow fedora almost as eye-catching as his four spindly legs.

“Oh my, I wonder what these gentlemen are after,” Brook muses, but regardless of whether he has any doubts as the King and his advisors cry out in shock, the newcomers kicking rubble and guardsmen alike out of their paths, he has already slid Soul Solid out of its sheath.

Zoro does the same, sweeping across the room to stand between the fishmen and the King. _Why can’t we catch a break?_ Usopp sighs, scurrying over to do the same, and as Morgandy dives into the safety of his pocket and Pax begins a low, eruptive growl, Hody Jones and his alliance attack.

The deal survives a noteworthy _minute_ before collapsing with the fall of the King, Hody’s rain of bullets piercing through the Strawhat defence to rip into Neptune and his staff.

Zoro honestly hadn’t expected it to last even that long.

“Usopp! Get Brook out of here!” he bellows as Hody’s assault continues, sea-water beginning to flood into the room. Torrents of it cascade down onto their heads; the fishmen in their element, but the Strawhats and their daemons struggling to fight within the tide. The King strives restlessly against his chains, cursing at Hody and frantic for his daughter, although Shirahoshi is probably the safest person in the kingdom right now, unless Luffy has gone and _lost_ her as well. The imminent drowning of half of the crew is all that Zoro cares about, so he yanks Brook’s toppling body into Usopp’s arms, urging them both to flee. Nami, Jasper, and Keimi have all disappeared, but Nami’s smart, so they’ll be fine. Pax, on the other hand, is already treading water at Zoro’s waist, leaving Zoro as the only combatant in the crew.

“Find Raquel,” Zoro orders, pointing Usopp towards the door. “She’ll take you to Luffy!”

“Raquel’s here?” the sharpshooter just manages to ask before another wave comes crashing down upon him, submerging his cry.

Zoro curses, lugging Shusui out of the water to cut the King free. Usopp won’t be able to out-swim a fishman, especially not with Brook flopped over as deadweight in his arms.

“Help them. Get them out of here,” he asks of the King, drawing Wadō Ichimonji for the first time since departing the Grand Line. She hums in his hand, an elegant and deadly weight, and she sings a dangerous song, eager to show Hody just what they can do.

Zoro doesn’t bother telling Pax to escape; doesn’t even bother telling her to get to higher ground.

He scatters the New Fishman pirates, carving a wound into Hody from shoulder to hip.

He drowns for his efforts, and wakes in a cage. Pax is squashed on top of him. Zoro coughs, a lungful of water splattering onto the swaying, steel floor, then lifts a hand to stroke through her fur.

“Did the others get away?”

“Err, nope, still here,” Usopp replies, Brook _yohohoho_ ing behind him. They're crammed together just a foot away, Brook’s legs thin enough to slip through the bars of the cage but too tall to sit comfortably, hunched over where Usopp is curled. Zoro is folded by Usopp’s knees, and Pax swallows the rest of the space - not that there is any - plastered out like a fuzzy blanket over them all. Her fur is stifling but Zoro is used to it, although Usopp looks to be sweating enough to explain the rising water level below the cage that they are suspended in.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “No wait, of course you're okay, Pax is fine - _no_ , don't try to get up, there really isn't enough room -”

The cage creaks as Zoro moves, rocking violently from the ceiling. Brook’s laughter rises with a nervous note. There’s no way to reach any of the surrounding walls that Zoro can see, and Brook would only fall to his death were he to squeeze through. The chain suspending them would be easy enough to cut had he his swords, but while their captors were smart enough to take them away, they weren’t smart enough to _kill them_ for some reason.

“How are we going to get out of this one?” Usopp asks. “Do you think they’ll come back and kill us? Or do you think we’re just going to _starve_?”

“We dehydrate before we starved,” Zoro deadpans, blocking out the sharpshooter’s fretting as he scans the room for an exit. There is nothing to be seen bar from two things: the water level creeping dangerously close below them; and a ledge some twenty, maybe thirty feet away that leads somewhere far out of sight. If they could escape the cage, then jumping the distance could be something to consider; they might be able to swing the cage closer, assuming that the chain will hold.

“Morg, can you jump that?”

The mountain weasel shakes her head, just as Zoro expected. But to his surprise, she does volunteer an alternative with a trembling, yet hopeful voice: “You might be able to _throw_ me.”

“I - I could try,” Usopp agrees, clutching the daemon tightly. “If it would help.”

Zoro considers the distance, then looks between the sniper and his other half. “You can’t move far from each other, can you?”

Their confidence flops, the statement all too true. If Sanji and Wilhelmina were here, then maybe matters would be different. And if Robin and _Aleksander_ were here, then they wouldn’t still be in this cage at all.

“I may be of assistance here,” Brook says, before promptly tipping back his head in a sacrificial rendition and spewing his vomit-green soul straight out of his mouth.

Zoro won’t ever admit to yelping, especially since the sound of Usopp’s shrieking mercifully covers up the noise. Even Pax won’t ever know, as she’s too busy trying to scramble away from Brook’s ghostly apparition as it whizzes around the cage, its teeth somehow clattering the skeleton’s typical laugh.

“I shall endeavour to locate somebody who can help us,” Brook’s soul says, bobbing without a care in the centre of the cage. It is still attached to his body, thankfully, by a trailing wisp of slime-green, and also doesn’t appear to feel any pain as they discover when Usopp continues to scream and _shoves_ Brook’s head through the bars.

“ _Oh my god, I touched it_!”

Brook just laughs. He vanishes off down the corridor humming a merry tune, leaving Zoro half-clutching, half-supporting his daemon, and Usopp staring at his hands as though they are stained with a sticky, horrid gloop. Brook’s impression of a skeleton has never been as skilled; with his soul off on a wander, his body is hunched like death against the cage, and Usopp stares at it with terror before releasing a terrible noise and wiping his hands on Pax.

He realises what he’s done a full five seconds before she does. This is actually rather impressive, considering Zoro also felt the drag of Usopp’s touch all the way down his arm.

“OOOHH MY GOD -”

Slowly, Pax blinks, giving the place where his hands had been a tentative scratch. She doesn’t appear or _feel_ , more importantly, unnerved by the accident, and Zoro’s mouth twitches up in amusement as Usopp squawks.

“- I’M SO SORRY -”

“Usopp.”

“ - I DIDN’T MEAN TO -”

“ _Usopp_.”

“ - I WASN’T THINKING -”

“HEY,” Zoro barks, not meaning to startle his friend but achieving this all the same, Usopp’s hands slapping over his mouth with a squeak. “Relax, it’s fine,” he adds, gentler, scratching Pax behind her ear. She pushes her head into the touch, entirely at ease, and Zoro raises an eyebrow as though to say, _see?_

Usopp shakes his head. “I’m -”

“Stop apologising. Come on, she’s practically sitting on you already.”

Which is true. The cage really wasn’t designed with a wolfdog daemon in mind. Some of Usopp’s terror lessens at this reminder and his hands slip down his from mouth, but his eyes are still transfixed on the patch of fur that his hands had scrubbed through.

“I’ll - I’ll try not to do it again,” he vows.

Zoro just shrugs, surprising himself by not feeling fussed either way. He can’t imagine his life without his nakama now, and those two years apart were two of the longest, most painful of his life. _Missing them_ had never been in question, but missing them _so much_... “It’s cool; you’re nakama. You already talk to her, yeah? Plus, she didn’t rip your hands off so…”

“That’s meant to be reassuring,” Pax clarifies.

Usopp doesn’t look particularly reassured.

 

 

 

An hour passes. The water is close enough to touch now, sloshing into the bottom of the cage if they stand up or shift their weight. Brook’s soul is still exploring beyond his body, but they begin to worry about the sea-water counteracting his abilities. It is only a few inches of water but it is also continuing to rise, and so they decide to keep Brook’s body levitated as high as they can.

Fortunately, help appears just as they are struggling to manoeuvre nine-foot of skeleton within a considerably smaller cage. Unfortunately for Brook, Aleksander’s unexpected appearance scares the wits out of Usopp, who screams at the top of his lungs and sends both himself and Brook’s poor skeleton crashing against the cage.

Hopefully Brook can't feel what's happening to his body.

“This is a tricky situation you’ve found yourselves in,” Aleksander ponders, leaning in from atop the cage. Blue-black feathers spill down outside the bars like the water rising up from below. “Are you all well?”

“We won’t be if we don’t get out of here soon,” Usopp gasps, even more water gushing around their feet from where dropping Brook had shaken the cage. “How did you find us? Can you do something to break the lock?”

“Give me a moment,” Aleksander says, making no move to inspect the latch. “Your expressions are worth savouring.”

Zoro releases a breathless laugh. “Fuck’s sake, Alek, you’ve become just as bad as Robin.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, _we don’t have a moment here!_ ” Usopp pleas, dancing about in the water. He’s right, of course, but now that Aleksander is here, there shouldn’t be any reason to worry. “Brook should've been back with the keys or Zoro’s swords by now!”

“I see,” says Aleksander, considering Brook’s empty body with his infinite patience. “I suppose this poses the question as to whether he can interact with tangible objects in this state. How does he plan to return with his findings?”

A pin dropping could be heard in the silence.

“ _We're doomed_ ,” Usopp wails, latching onto Zoro’s arm. “ _I don’t wanna die like this_.”

Neither does Zoro, to be honest, considering he has already drowned once today.

“Alek, how did you know we were here?” he asks, ignoring Usopp’s screech of, _that’s not the most important thing right now!_

“Everybody else is gathered at the Sea Forest, and once we learned that you all had been imprisoned within the castle, Raquel and I came to assist you. The Royal family have also befallen capture at the hands of Hody Jones, but it is Luffy’s wish to rescue them once we are all safely reunited.”

“Raquel came with you?” Pax mumbles, ears squashing flat against her skull. “What a surprise.”

Zoro’s eyebrows shoot up, but he refrains from saying anything for the moment.

“Yes,” Aleksander replies, serene in the face of the wolfdog’s obvious displeasure. Now is not the time to enquire; but he is Robin’s daemon, so he probably wouldn’t anyway, not while there are so many variables that he doesn’t know. “I envision that she is searching for Brook as we speak.”

“Whatever,” Pax huffs. “Can you get us out of here?”

Aleksander shakes his head. “Not without the keys. Wait just a while longer, I will return.”

And he, too, leaves them suspended above their deaths. Usopp’s sigh is grave but his panic has eased, and returns to hauling Brook’s body out of the water. He looks to Zoro for assistance, just briefly, but whatever he sees on Zoro’s expression is enough to frighten him into an awkward, pretending-not-to-be-there silence. This is quite a feat considering that they’re crammed together in a cage and he has a skeleton wearing a three-piece suit flopped over his arms.

Zoro, for his part, takes a steadying breath before rounding on his daemon. “What is your problem?”

Pax’s expression is hard to discern, which worries Zoro more than he would ever like to admit. “You should be able to figure it out. These aren’t just my feelings.”

 _Patronised_ isn’t often how Zoro feels when conversing with his daemon. “Raquel’s done nothing to us,” he argues, because if nothing else, it’s blatantly obvious that Luffy’s daemon is the source of Pax’s reservations.

Only - she tips back her head, challenging this presumption. “Don’t be thick. That’s not the problem and you know it.”

“Guys…” Usopp tries to soothe, squeaking as nervously as his weasel daemon. “Maybe now isn’t the time…?”

“Pax, if I knew what the problem was, I wouldn’t be asking,” Zoro replies, ignoring the sharpshooter’s (sensible) suggestion. With the water washing over their feet and their chance of escaping this prison with their lives intact shrinking smaller and smaller with every minute, now really _isn’t_ the type to be bickering. Except - it’s also the _only_ time to clear this up, because soon Aleksander will return will the keys and they will be free, and the only thing that will matter is racing to the Sea Forest to meet up with the rest of the crew.

Pax, of course, ignores Usopp too. “You’ve never had to ask before,” she accuses, sounding as disbelieving as Zoro feels.

“You’ve never not _confided_ me in before,” he retaliates, voice dropping as though there isn’t _any way_ that Usopp and Morgandy won’t overhear. Pax’s accusation sits heavy in his chest, but it’s the way that she shakes her head, entirely posture guarded and her ears still flat that has Zoro fearing that he isn’t understanding his daemon at all.

“Well, we’ve never been apart for two years before,” she grumbles, the _have we?_ unspoken but ringing loud and clear all the same, and even Morgandy emits a sound of discomfort before diving back into Usopp’s dungarees.

It’s the only noise to be heard for a moment that lingers on long and strained.

Zoro hasn’t heard his daemon this miserable in years, and never - never at _him_.

“Is that what this is about?” he mutters, very aware of Usopp whispering _oh god, oh god, I should not be hearing this_ just feet away. “D’you think I wanted that to happen?”

Pax jerks as though she’s been struck, and Zoro can painfully relate. “No!”

“You think this is _my fault_?”

“NO! Never! _Never_ , I swear.” Pax’s tail tucks beneath her, her eyes wide and body hunched, and she glances to the side as though the sea-water rising up her flank is more appealing than looking him in the eye. “But -”

“Yohohohoho, my dear friends, I have returned as promised!”

Brook’s soul comes whizzing through the bars and slams back into his body, his limbs of bone creaking and clattering against the cage. Usopp yelps, struggling to keep the wriggling musician out of the water now that he’s very much _alive_ , and the icy currents slosh and slap up against his dungarees. Zoro reaches out to support them both just as Aleksander and Raquel alight atop the cage, a set of keys jangling from Aleksander’s beak.

From his claws hangs Kabuto and Soul Solid, and from Raquel’s, Wadō Ichimonji and Zoro’s other katana are tied.

Aleksander unlocks the latch a mere second before Zoro draws Wadō Ichimonji straight out of Raquel’s grasp and carves the cage horizontally in two. He scoops Pax up and grabs onto the suspended remains as the bottom gives out, but Usopp, Morgandy, and Brook aren’t so lucky, plunging the final few inches into the churning sea-water below.

Zoro’s mood hasn’t improved by the time they reach dry-land. Pax is unspeaking at his side, small despite her colossal size, and even Usopp hasn’t blabbered a lie about their extraordinary escape. Brook hasn’t questioned the muted atmosphere but has no doubt picked up upon it, casting his nakama as troubled an expression as his skull can produce. His fingers clink against his cane as they make their way to the Sea Forest, but Zoro doesn’t have the energy to feel irked by the implication that he isn’t focused enough on their surroundings. He doesn’t know what to say to Pax, and she doesn’t seem to know what to say to him, so they say nothing to each other as their nakama worry around them. Wisely, Aleksander had flown ahead the moment that they were freed, and Raquel had lingered just long enough to return Zoro’s katana - and only because Pax had snubbed her into leaving.

Zoro can only hope that Luffy isn’t being affected by this.

“HEEYYYYY,” comes the call from the captain as they approach, the residential streets thinning away into a backdrop of plant-life and coral, the sea coloured oceanic pinks and blues and distant, algae greens. Out here, it feels as though a pocket of the world has been left to thrive in secret, and Zoro finds himself smiling as he spots Luffy’s flailing wave.

“What took you guys so long?” the captain laughs, bobbing around between the rest of the crew. He is entirely unharmed and apparently undisturbed by the argument occurring between his daemon and Zoro’s, and Zoro imagines that this is because Raquel hasn’t disclosed the matter, rather than any other reason.

“Moss-head got lost, obviously,” Sanji drawls, the plaster across their nose detracting from the ferocity of their glare. Zoro quirks an eyebrow at the sight of it but doesn’t ask, figuring out all of the details for himself when he shares a significant glance with Wilhelmina as he passes.

The gigantic mermaid is a pretty helping clue, all things considered.

“Um, h - hello,” she greets, twirling her extraordinarily long, bubblegum pink hair around a finger shyly. “My name is Shirahoshi. I’m -”

“This is the crybaby!” Luffy says, hijacking the girl’s introduction. He pats the Princess’ tail - her scales looking more like shimmering slices of peach than anything remotely mermaid-like - and snickers at her warbling argument. She sounds so deeply offended by the accusation despite probably having heard it a hundred times before, and Zoro isn’t sure if he should feel sorry for her or not.

“Crybaby, this is Zoro, Pax, Usopp, Morgandy, and Brook!” Luffy goes on, pointing at each of his crew in turn. “Now everyone’s here! Hey, did you guys really get stuck in a cage? I bet that was funny! You missed Megalo basically swallowing crybaby - it was great! And look - Jinbe’s here! He’s going to join our crew, aren’t you?”

The fishman sighs as though he, too, has been on the unfortunate end of Luffy’s undeniable will a hundred times already. None of the crew so much as utter a word in Jinbe’s defence, so Zoro figures that the new addition has long-since been agreed upon.

“Man!” Luffy continues, as though the rest of the Royal Family aren’t being held captive, Fishman island isn’t pending an imminent destruction, and his daemon is actually on speaking terms with his partner’s. “We’re gonna kick butt! Hey, crybaby, you’re gonna head back to the palace yeah…?”

The plan - already devised, as it turns out - is simple. Robin explains it with the patience of a saint, _allowing_ rather than _listening to_ Luffy and Franky argue over the acceptable level of dramatics when the Sunny’s hull is concerned, and Zoro lets himself tune out of the conversation. He’ll go where his captain tells him to go and cut where his captain tells him to cut, so there isn’t much of a need for him to listen as Brook and Usopp are filled in on the details.

Instead, he watches Raquel and Frigg converse in quiet tones - or, quiet for Frigg anyway - as their other halves debate the logistics of moving the Sunny (“ _We’re not just going to chuck her across the kingdom, Strawhat!_ ”) The peregrine doesn’t appear to hold the same reservations to Frigg as she does Pax, and Zoro’s expression pinches as he contemplates the possibility that Pax - and by extension, _him_ \- really is the cause of this dispute.

Pax nudges his thigh. Zoro reaches down to pet her without thinking, other hand still resting atop his katana, and she pushes her snout into the touch, going so far as to lick his palm.

 _Yeah_ , Zoro thinks, scratching under her chin. _Me too_.

Feeling mad at the literal other half of your soul isn’t exactly easy when they know you inside and out.

“She’s doing it again,” Pax whispers, knocking him to turn towards Raquel and Frigg. She means Raquel, of course she does, but for the life of him, Zoro doesn’t know what it is about Raquel chatting with Frigg that is upsetting his daemon so.

Luckily for him, Pax understands when he doesn’t - now that they've tempered their anger, at any least.

“It’s what she’s _not_ doing that bugs me. Look at her. I mean it, Zoro, I know you’ve only got one eye now but _really look_.”

His lips smack together; he tugs at her ear, ignoring her protesting whine. “Oi. Don’t you start.”

She smiles against his hand, but the amusement is short-lived. Raquel and Frigg have stopped talking now, the hare bounding off after Franky’s clanking steps, and so the first mate and his daemon watch in silence as Raquel flies up to a rock of her preference and begins to preen. Blood still marrs her feathers, her talons crusted red-black with it, and she picks at the ribbons carefully without a care for the state of her crest.

Luffy laughs some feet away. Nami waggles a finger at him, berating him in her terrible, shrieking tones, and Chopper hops up and down at her feet, medical bag bouncing at his hip. Jasper is an amber statue at Nami’s side, the twitch of his ears revealing his restless mind. Luffy’s laughter rises up, encouraging his crew to turn like moths to a flame, but Raquel just ruffles her feathers before inspecting her other claw.

Seeing them so far apart, Zoro cannot help but feel hyper-aware of Pax at his side.

“How do you think they feel?” she asks sadly. “D’you think they feel it at all?”

Zoro doesn’t know. It’s not their place to ask questions about Luffy and Raquel’s relationship, no matter how close to Luffy they may be. The bond between a human and their daemon is a private thing, perhaps even more so if they are separated. From the two years that Zoro was forced apart from Pax, he can guess how it may feel to be detached from her on such a primal level, but there is only one way that he will ever truly know. Luffy doesn’t seem particularly bothered by his daemon’s behaviour though, but regardless of whether or not this is normal, it’s still not any of Zoro’s business. Pax will just have to tide herself over with the knowledge of Luffy’s happiness, no matter how much Raquel’s distance unsettles her.

Zoro isn’t going to bring up the matter to his partner, and definitely not to his partner’s daemon. To Pax, though, he says: “You think about just _talking_ to her?” which he realises a moment too late just how hypocritical that sounds.

She shares enough of his personality to call him out on it. “Only if _all else_ fails, obviously. Think I’d rather get stuck in a chimney again, honestly. She’s just… you know.”

Now _that_ he understands. “Luffy’s daemon?”

“Luffy’s daemon,” Pax agrees.

 

 

 

Fishman island cheers for them. The Sea Kings carry Noah away on a wave of monsters, the plummet of the legendary ship ceased by the call of the Princess as she throws her arms wide. She returns a bloodied but grinning Luffy to his crew, and Jinbe affirms his place amongst the Strawhat crew with a cannula in his arm and a smile on his face, pledging his life to Luffy’s dream. The crew surround them, daemons and humans woven into a bickering, laughing, lawless family. Morgandy recounts her bravery to Wilhelmina, Sanji throwing the sniper dubious looks as Morgandy air-punches an imaginary foe. Jasper and Aleksander seem to be scheming, Nami no doubt miffed about missing out on a palace full of treasure, and Frigg is talking mechanics to Franky, the shipwright duo wasting no time about checking the Sunny. Brook goes with them, chattering about finally brewing a well-deserved pot of tea, and Zoro hums at the thought, fancing another bottle of booze or twelve.

Luffy will call for a feast once he’s up, of that there is no doubt. For now, the captain is down for the count, sprawled out and helpless against Chopper’s caring fuss. Zoro doesn’t go over, knowing that there’s nothing that really needs to be said, but Raquel does appear from the smoldering depths of the battleground, gliding through the crowd to alight by Luffy’s head.

He tilts his chin back to glance at her, squashing his beloved hat further beneath them. Whatever Raquel says is only for his ears, but if Pax overhears the comment, then she only disregards it, stretching out her body with a wolfish yawn.

The feast is spectacular. Bowls and platters and mountains of food pile the tables. Drink bubbles down in fountains and alcohol rolls in by the barrel, and the celebration rages on incessantly into the night, a sea of good food and even better friends dancing with the tides. There is something for everybody here, from Luffy and his meat to Franky and his cola, Usopp’s tales and Nami’s gambling finding their niches amongst the crowd. Zoro is content to drink and laugh as his nakama dance, bet, and sweet-talk long into the evening, although he maintains a close eye on their daemons as they, too, enjoy themselves, their existence something of a spectacle to the fishmen and mermen alike. Chopper, Wilhelmina, and Morgandy had puppy-dog-eyed her into a game of chase some hours ago, so where she has gotten to now is anybody’s guess.

He doesn’t mind. Their bond, though stretched to an almost imaginable length, pulses continually no matter the space between them.

At some unidentifiable time before the reality of dawn, Luffy ambles over and plonks himself down at Zoro’s side. A humongous dish of chicken wings slops over in his lap, sticky hand-prints lining the metal sides. Relieved that his partner refrained from slingshotting himself over with his greasy hands, Zoro offers the jug of squash he’d had waiting for Luffy’s appearance at his side.

Luffy downs it, already buzzing from a sugar rush. If he isn’t allowed to run laps or something before hitting the hay, then he’s going to be _insufferable_ for the rest of the night.

“Thanks Zoro! You want a chicken wing?”

“You eat them,” he replies, which isn’t exactly a _no_ and thus Luffy doesn’t take it as one, picking up the stickiest piece he can find and lobbing it into Zoro’s face. It smacks him right across the cheek before tumbling into his drink, and Luffy laughs _whoops!_ before wiping the gooey trail away with his finger. It’s disgusting - and so is the chicken wing bobbing in Zoro’s mug.

“Thanks for that,” he sighs, setting the drink aside to fetch another. There’s too much alcohol at his disposal to be mad about one ruined cup, after all, and Luffy’s laughter is infectious as it bubbles up from within the captain’s enormous stomach.

“You should’ve caught it!”

“Oh, my bad. I’ll watch out for it next time.”

This may be difficult, considering that Luffy is sitting on his blind side. Zoro has to crane his neck just to see anything beyond the gigantic chicken dish.

Luffy’s laughter adopts a guilty titter, but he doesn’t apologise. Instead, he continues stuffing his face until Zoro has chugged his way through another drink, and by that point, Zoro has become suspicious enough of the captain’s silence not to feel any surprise when he speaks up again:

“Hey, hey Zoro. Raquel’s done something, hasn’t she?”

Zoro doesn’t put his drink down, but it’s close. So Luffy _has_ noticed the passive-aggressive argument taking place, and he’s concerned enough not to let it resolve without adding his two cents to the matter. Now that either says volumes about Raquel’s temperament - or _Pax’s_.

“No,” Zoro replies, even though the answer is far more complicated than that. “Pax is just… in a mood.”

He hopes that Luffy will take that to mean _don’t worry about it, she’ll sort it out_ , but Luffy just _uh-huhs_. He pushes the chicken wings around in the dish, but doesn’t reach to eat anymore, and Zoro pours himself another drink because he should probably be buzzed for this.

“So… is Zoro gonna tell me about it?”

Plastered, maybe. “No.”

Luffy squints at him, face scrunching up in thought, before laughing. “Okay! Then I’m going to guess, and Zoro can tell me when I’m right! Did she steal Pax’s food?”

“ _No_ , Luffy.”

If Luffy takes this as dissuasion, he ignores it. “Did she accidentally fly into Pax? She used to do that a lot to me! Did she beat up Pax’s enemy? I hope not! Did she say something bad? Did she step on Pax’s tail?”

“Luffy -”

“Did she _hurt_ Pax?” He’s serious now, chicken wings entirely forgotten. “Did she touch _you_ ? Zoro needs to say something - has she upset you, has she _hurt_ you?”

How quick the captain is to assume that Raquel is to blame, not Pax, and that Raquel is capable of violently breaking the taboo is something that Zoro cannot explain. “Luffy, she’s your _daemon_ -”

“I know,” Luffy says lightly, smiling despite the fact that he’s talking about Raquel _hurting his nakama_. “But I haven’t seen her for a very long time, so I dunno what she’s like. Not really. She used to roll around with Evs all the time, but Ace didn’t mind that. I don’t know if you or Pax would like that, and I don’t know where Raquel’s been, or what she’s been up to -”

“Pax is mad because Raquel left you alone,” Zoro interrupts, not wanting to admit it but needed to alleviate Luffy’s concerns. “And now that she’s back, she’s not...”

He shrugs. Luffy throws a chicken wing into his mouth with an _oh_.

“She’s not spending time with me?” he guesses, crunching through even the bones. “That’s okay.”

Zoro doesn’t know why he was expecting Luffy to say anything else. “It’s not okay,” he grumbles, especially not if Pax is hurting herself by worrying about it. “You _missed_ her. Robin and Aleksander are never far apart.”

Luffy says nothing for a long minute. “Raquel chose to leave, you know. I dunno ‘bout Alek, but Raquel chose to leave. She wanted to go - so she went. And if she’s back, then it’s ‘cause she wants to be back. She can do what she likes, ‘cause she’s free.”

And isn’t the Pirate King the man with the most freedom upon the seas?

Maybe Zoro and Pax have been looking at this the wrong way all along.

“I’ll talk to Pax,” he promises, smothering how stupid he feels into the booze. He supposes he had been expecting Raquel to share Luffy’s hyperactive, carefree nature all of this time, and now he feels ridiculous for having forgotten about the driving force of Luffy’s unwavering will. Raquel may not be _exactly_ like Luffy, but her motivation to be free is _just like him_.

“Nah, don’t!” Luffy suggests, back to laughing his signature laugh. “Let them sort it out! They wanna be friends, yeah?”

Zoro concedes to the point, albeit reluctantly. “Might take ‘em a while.”

Luffy slaps him on the back, spilling the booze all over his lap. “That’s okay! There’s plenty to do in the meantime!”

“Like what?” Zoro replies, biting back a curse. He’s had enough of getting drenched for one day.

If Luffy’s grin was any brighter, Zoro could probably dry his robe in front of it. “I was thinking… there’s a lot of empty rooms in the palace… if Zoro wanted to go and -”

“ _Explore_?” Zoro provides, eyebrows arched high. He smiles back at his idiotic captain, deciding that _exploring_ is the best damn suggestion he’s heard all night. “You _sure_? Don’t you wanna finish those wings?”

Luffy doesn’t quite _shove_ the dish aside, but he does push it away with a forlorn and yet hilariously decisive expression, as though contemplating the logistics of bringing the food with them. That he decides against it fills Zoro with a sickly sort of affection, and the first mate laughs, unsurprised to find himself competing against pieces of _fried chicken_ , of all things.

“Everyone’ll probably just think we’ve gotten lost,” Luffy reasons.

Zoro just laughs harder, dipping down to kiss his partner’s temple, then his cheek and then finally - or hopefully _not_ , should no one come looking for them - his jaw.

“No, they’ll _definitely_ know what we’re up to.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment as you go! :)
> 
> There's like a 90% chance of another installment to this series at some point :P


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